An explanation for the recent dearth of news in the journal entries – Biden remains non-committal about aiding Ukraine – The abortion law of Idaho – Side-effects of the pandemic, bad and good – A potential pro-active measure for lessening infection – Evening statistics
I have been out and about the past several days, in part because I am helping RS verify a route that will, when finalized, lead from Harpers Ferry to the Occoquan. On Sunday, we went from Harpers Ferry to Snickers Gap (21 miles); on Tuesday, from Balls Bluff to Morven Park (14½ miles, but since we did this hike as a loop for the Vigorous Hikers, the actual length along the north-south axis covered is considerably less); on Wednesday, from Edwards Landing to Seneca Road (24 miles, but again the actual length is less because we lost some mileage in the course of going off-route during our bushwhacking); today, from Colvin Run Mill to Seneca Road (13½ miles). There have been other tasks to distract me as well, such as developing the hiking schedule for the Capital Hiking Club for the second quarter of the year and making preliminary plans for the Wanderbirds hiking schedule during the third quarter of the year – these being the times that the two clubs currently plan to revert to bus hikes. All of which has made me neglect the news for the much of the week.
Perhaps it is just as well, for the news is rather gloomy. Biden has held a news conference following his meeting with European leaders in response to Zelinskyy’s pleas for NATO and the U.S. to aid the Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion more substantially. Biden has, characteristically, striven his utmost to assume an air of gracefulness while sitting on the fence. He said that there’s a “real threat” of Russia using chemical weapons in Ukraine and he added that “there will be a response” if Russia actually does so, but on what the response will consist he was, to use the most charitable word, vague about the details. Zelininskyy has asked NATO to provide Ukraine with tanks, fighter jets, and other planes to combat the arms that Russia has deployed, without any restrictions; but so far he has not received an answer and it does not appear likely that he will get one.
Governor Brad Little of Idaho has signed into law a measure that allows people who would have been family members to sue a doctor who performs an abortion after cardiac activity (or what passes for cardiac activity; for, as has already been noted, the human heart is not fully formed until 20 weeks into a pregnancy) is detected in an embryo. Rapists will not be able to sue under such circumstances, it is true; but their relatives would be allowed to do so. The law is scheduled to take effect 30 days after the signing. Court challenges are naturally expected. Opponents have said repeatedly that many women are not even aware that they are pregnant a bare six weeks after conception.
What is surprising is not the extremity of the anti-abortion sentiment on behalf of this Republican governor, but his open admission that such a law is probably unconstitutional. “Deputizing private citizens to levy hefty monetary fines on the exercise of a disfavored but judicially recognized constitutional right for the purpose of evading court review undermines our constitutional form of government and weakens our collective liberties,” he wrote, and he added that a similar approach could be used to restrict gun rights, a measure that would not be very popular in a state where a large number of its residents are enthusiastic hunters. He also expressed concern about the provision that allowed the relatives of rapists to sue. But despite these reservations, he has signed in the law, in the hope of currying favor with the faction that currently endorses a far-right opponent for the upcoming gubernatorial election.
Among the many side-effects of the pandemic is the exodus of residents from major metropolitan areas. New York City was the greatest loser, from which nearly 328,000 citizens moved out. (It should be added that new residents from abroad and new births have more than made up for this loss.) Metropolitan Los Angeles lost almost 176,000 residents, the San Francisco area lost more than 116,000 residents, and greater Chicago lost more than 91,000 people from 2020 to 2021. The San Jose, Boston, Miami, and Washington areas have also lost residents, although to a lesser degree. The pandemic facilitated these flights from urban areas by driving businesses to direct their workers to operate from their homes. With daily commuting becoming less common, many are taking advantage of the situation by moving to less expensive neighborhoods without concern for being in the vicinity of the office that employs them.
Another effect has been a noticeable increase in deaths from heart disease and strokes, due to the over-crowding of hospitals that the pandemic induced. Deaths from these causes had actually declined during the period 2011-2019, but during the first year of the pandemic deaths from heart disease increased by 6.4% and deaths from strokes increased by 4.3%. Overall, from 2019 to 2020 the estimated age-adjusted mortality rate increased by 15.9%, largely due to COVID-19 mortality. Sadly, the official death toll from COVID has surpassed 1 million in the U.S.
On the other hand, influenza and various other virus-related respiratory diseases have actually decreased during the pandemic. The measures to prevent infection from COVID have been effective in curbing other viruses. Flu activity during the 2020-21 season was the lowest it has been since current reporting began in 1997. The overall cumulative hospitalization rate for the 2020-21 flu season was 0.8 per 100,000. By way of contrast, for the 2019-20 flu season, the overall cumulative end-of-season hospitalization rate was 66.2 per 100,000.
Towards the beginning of the pandemic a certain political leader made the following suggestion to physicians treating the emerging disease:
“Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous – whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light. I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it.”
Incredible as it sounds, Donald Trump may have been correct in this assessment, no matter how widely he has been mistaken in others. A new paper, published this week in the journal Scientific Reports, has found that filling a room with a special type of ultraviolet light can reduce the presence of microbes in the air by up to 98 percent – effectively making the indoors as safe as outdoors in terms of person-to-person virus transmission. This light is known as far-UVC . The technology for producing UVC has actually been in place for well over one-and-a-half centuries. It has shorter wavelengths and higher photonic energy than both its UVA and UVB brethren. It was first used for sterilization purposes in 1878. In 1903, Niels Ryberg Finsen received a Nobel prize for using it to treat disfiguring diseases such as lupus. By 1910 it was routinely used for disinfecting water supplies.
UVC light, however, has numerous unpleasant side-effects, including, if the exposure is too high, second-degree burns and eye injuries. About ten years ago, however, a group of scientists refined UVC light by heavily filtering it so that only the lowest wavelengths were beamed out. This “far-UVC” light is powerful enough to kill viruses and bacteria, but not sufficiently powerful to affect the human skin or the human eye. It is inexpensive and easy to produce, and as its use increases it has the potential of reducing not only the rate of infection by COVID through transmission indoors, but of other viruses as well.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM – # of cases worldwide: 477,733,152; # of deaths worldwide: 6,132,371; # of cases U.S.: 81,548,976; # of deaths; U.S.: 1,001,616.